Prudence walked into the conference room with the others, pausing to chat with Neo-Tantra´s top management. Like many members of the Neo-Tantra staff, she wore a brightly colored pareo low on her hips. She´d adopted the habit from her instructors during her indoctrination. Spending a lot of time in the safety of the Home meant her knife and the freedom of movement conferred by a kilt would not be needed. The casual atmosphere allowed her to indulge her love of jewelry, and she wore one of her growing collection of necklaces. She chatted with her colleagues briefly before taking her place at the table next to Terry Sideman. Most of them were clad in the usual kilts.
She had completed the intensive, second-level Neo-Tantra course following her vacation and had begun using her training during the weeks since. Today, she could feel the camaraderie in the room, as well as the undercurrents of tension and concern in each of the participants. She had met all of them during her travels, but this was her first exposure to them as a group.
Terry began the meeting. “You all know that Pru has been through the Neo-Tantra intensive course, and spent some time getting acquainted with the company here at the home office. She´s also spent a while visiting our country offices to see what goes on there. I´ve seen her report and asked her to present it to all of you because I think she´s got something. I want you to see this and then we can all discuss it.” He gestured to Pru.
Pru keyed her remote, and the images of her presentation began to appear on the big com screen as she spoke.
“I still have a lot to learn about how Neo-Tantra operates,” she began, “but when I joined, I wanted to get around and see what we´re doing – really doing – in the field. I visited our major field offices around the world, as well as the Central and Pacific CAs here in North America. I have some ideas to share with you.
“Let me point out that the work Neo-Tantra does for the OSG is fairly well known to me. That is, I´ve been briefed on it, and our effectiveness in that work was one of the things I was looking at. But, the more important part of my trip was to see how viable our marketing and delivery of Neo-Tantra is at the point of sale. And also, to get an estimate of the effectiveness of our teaching.
“To summarize my findings, we´re good at what we do. Customer satisfaction is high: we get a lot of repeat business from customers returning to take advanced courses. And, you already know that.
“Our revenues from North America are consistently above expectations, as you know, John.” She nodded toward the Vice President for North American Operations. “And, our International Operations, Rebecca, also show strong and consistent growth.
“I didn´t need to do all that traveling to find that much out. I´m sure you´re aware of that. It was clear from my initial research here at Home Office once I completed the course and came on board.
“No, what I was looking for in my travels was more for a sense of how well we are meeting the challenges for growth in the marketplace around the world. That´s where I found some things to think about.
“We have offices in 15 countries, with more than 600 centers in all, most of them in North America, where we are showing excellent growth. That sounds respectable on the face of it, but I think we are missing the boat in many ways.
“Outside North America, our offices are mostly in countries or areas where there is trouble of one kind or another, mainly terrorism and ethnic or religious trouble. You all know that´s because of our work for OSG. Yes, we have offices in different EU national areas where terror is a remote issue, but they represent a fairly small part of our commitment. We´re not particularly aggressive there, either. Same with China and Japan. The Russian operation suffers from the size of the country and the relatively small extent of Controlled Areas there compared with the space involved. Central and Southern Asia are much the same, although in Southern Asia the scarcity of CAs is due more to climate and the needs of recreational areas where climate control runs against the recreation and tourist industries. Overall, I think there are two things wrong with this picture.
“First, this distribution, or marketing emphasis, if you prefer, means we are not bringing Neo-Tantra to foreign markets where we can really make significant revenue and profits. Our profit structure is too heavily based on North America.”
She turned to Terry. “When you started Neo-Tantra, you concentrated on North America. When OSG got involved, you began to open offices in response to needs they expressed.” She turned back to the rest. “But, now we can see that, while the OSG may continue to ask for coverage in trouble spots, we need to put more of our focus on the bottom line. It is in the OSG´s interest – not to mention our own – for us to be a profitable and strong company for the long term. We need to be in a position where we do not depend as a company on the revenue that OSG provides to support our intelligence activities.” A hand went up. It was the Director of European Operations.
“Yes, Michael?”
“How badly off would we be if OSG went away? I ask, because none of us knows who´s getting the benefit of OSG funds. Not for sure anyway.”
“Right. Fortunately, as you know, all but a very few of our offices at least break even. If OSG ‘went away´, as you put it, we probably wouldn´t have to close more than about 5% of our centers. In fact, the surpluses from our operations in North America and our relatively small presence in the EU and South American areas would keep them going. We´d be tight, but not in trouble. But, thanks for the question: you´ve played into my second point.
“The second point is that our distribution leaves us open to exposure. Because we have a relatively small number of offices in the EU area, and a proportionately large number along the Maghreb, for example, the distribution looks funny. We´re in all the trouble spots, but few of the quiet places where Neo-Tantra should naturally be a big seller. It looks fishy. And, that endangers our cover in working for OSG. It´s only a question of time before some organization of bad guys realizes the connection. Exposure would not only compromise our value to OSG, but could basically kill our business altogether, Michael. That´s why we need to be financially independent of OSG. After all, we believe in our product, and it shouldn´t be vulnerable to what has been, to some extent, a marriage of convenience.
“So, what I´ve proposed to Terry is that we undertake a phased and consistent program to expand our market, especially in the EU, China and Japan. China, as you know, has a number of trouble spots that OSG wants covered. But, we need to expand there more broadly than simply by addressing the OSG´s requirements. We also need to expand more in Southeast Asia, but that may take more time, or perhaps more help from OSG.
“I´ve sent each of you a copy of my entire report; you´ll find it on your coms. Now, back to Terry.”
Terry leaned forward, looking around the room. “Any questions before I go on?”
Henry, the North America VP, spoke up. “I´m mainly curious how this is going to be financed. You know that I´ve submitted requests to expand in both Central and Pacific. Do I have to kiss that goodbye?”
“No,” Terry replied. “At least not all of it. Our reserves are more than adequate to carry out the expansion Pru recommends and still do most of what we already have in the pipeline. We´ll discuss that in detail later on.”
The European director said, “I´m really pleased about this. I know we´ve always concentrated on hot spots, but I know that it won´t take much to start bringing the EU up to its potential. In fact, the failure to do so has bothered me.”
“I know. You´ve told me several times.” Terry grinned. “But, until we had someone who could see all these issues, as each of you has seen those that affect you, and make me look hard at them, I just sort of went on as always. That´s one of the drawbacks of being a closely held operation, you know. You don´t always have someone who´ll tell you what you need to hear.” He waved a hand to dispel response. “I know, and I haven´t always been willing to listen. Now, I´m listening.”
A dark woman spoke up. “Pru, I´m surprised you haven´t mentioned more expansion in South America. We discussed it during your visits there. I thought I´d sold you.”
“Maria,” Pru acknowledged, “you did. But, South America is the one major area where we have good coverage for Neo-Tantra as well as for OSG. We´re well located in both high-profit areas and in trouble spots. Therefore, I think we can continue our development there along your current lines. Now, of course, that leaves Africa, and we have a lot of development to do there. I have detailed recommendations in my plan that we´ll go into at length in a few minutes.”
Terry turned to Pru, “Thank you, Pru. Now, let´s get down to details.”